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PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 19:08 
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El Reg wrote:

Ford cars get draconian parental controls

Speed capped, wheelspin nixed, shock-jock radio stifled

By Bill Ray • Get more from this author
Posted in Security, 4th January 2011 11:01 GMT


Teenagers will soon find radio shock jocks off the listings, along with loud music, speeding of any kind and wheel spins too – if Dad upgrades to Ford's MyKey system that is.

MyKey works with the MyFord Touch system, a standard feature on many US models which can already lock on the traction control and limit the stereo volume to protect a child's delicate hearing. Now the beloved first-born* can have his top speed capped, and isn't even allowed to listen to "explicit" radio stations, which should remove any remaining vestige of street credibility.

Kids will have to wear seatbelts too, or face a journey in silence as the radio cuts out entirely if belts aren't worn. Mum and Dad are allowed to fly through the windscreen to an accompanying soundtrack as usual, if the air bags don't catch 'em.

The MyKey technology is based on the transceiver already built into many key fobs – used to immobilise cars if the ignition key is bypassed. The fob is already used by some cars to adjust seats and mirrors to pre-programmed settings for that driver; My[First]Key just allows a parent to make those settings on behalf of their children, and will come as standard on the higher-end (US) Fords next year.

According to Ford, 60 per cent of (American) parents want to be able to block explicit radio stations (around a dozen of the several-hundred stations provided by Sirius satellite radio), while 85 per cent of them approved of speed-capping and 45 per cent of their kids even liked the idea – "if it meant the possibility of additional driving privileges".

One might argue that better parenting and some trust would work as effectively as any technology, and that might be true with speeding and wheel-spinning, but surely some freedoms are worth sacrificing to protect children from the worst excesses of US radio jockeys. ®

* Following children are never as coddled as the first-born, anyone with more than one kid will confirm that.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 21:07 
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So you can still do handbrake turns and reverse donuts? :D

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 21:40 
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The technology is there to stop that too (up to a point) if required!

The thing is, they forget that the kids are likely to know much more about the technology than they do. I would expect the smarter kids to "hack" it sooner or later and before we know it, they'll be getting their parents' cars unlocked in much the same way as they get their mobiles unlocked!

Whether or not society will be any better off for it is a defferent matter. I'm sure it will save some lives (innocent ones as well as the miscreants) and that's a great thing, obviously, but it will probably also further erode the concept of anybody taking responsibility for their own actions. We'll just have another generation of people who have never had to "say no" and exercise their own self-control. Sooner or later, they'll grow old enough to make their own mistakes, but it will have been postponed for several years. I'm wondering if I'll have the bottle to give my lads the use of my car when they come of age... My dad trusted me with his, and although I had a few close shaves, nothing bad ever happened. Moreover, the very action of a parent trusting a teenager does, I think, in itself foster a degree of responsibility. I've a feeling this wil lsolve one problem and create different ones.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 02:12 
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Surely they will likely place one of these on the rear parcel shelf....
Image

which will add to the trauma of any accident they might be involved in.

And seatbelt warnings are easily overcome by sitting on the closed belt - don't the people who think these ideas up know ANYTHING?

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 14:03 
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Doesn't seem like an immediately bad idea to me, at first thought. Parental controls are available on pretty much everything else, and I much prefer parents taking responsibility for their children's actions, in preference to abdicating responsibilities to the state!

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 13:07 
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RobinXe wrote:
parents taking responsibility for their children's actions,


But is this not exactly the opposite of that?

Parents are handing responsibility of their children's actions over to a computer.

Anyway, it's easily foiled by the age old method of "borrow dad's keys".

Another thought. Why are they letting kids drive if they aren't even mature enough to pick their own radio station!


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 23:28 
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Yes, that's a good point, I think. It isn't so much taking responsibility for bringing your kids up properly so that they can drive safely, so much as accepting defeat and just assuming they're not going to in the first place.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 18:30 
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I would say its orders of magnitude more responsible than allowing your spawn to disappear in the car, and leaving it up to the scant number of traffic poice on the roads to bring them in line.

It's like parental control on the internet or TV; you can't supervise them 24/7, and at some point the apron strings have to be cut, but they can be loosened a little by use of these tools.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 23:02 
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I can see your point, but I still think there's a big danger that it will be used as an ALTERNATIVE to good parenting (which is bloody hard, let's face it!) rather than to augment it. My kids are too young yet, but I'd like to think that when the time came, I'd have educated them sufficiently to be able to trust them with my car. This may, of course, come back to bite me in the backside as the time draws closer, but it's the ideal I'll be trying to work towards!


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 14:33 
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When the use of the limiter causes an avoidable accident, this will become a problem for the OEM. I have a young son, I would never presume to remove one of his options for hazard avoidence once he starts driving. He will start with a low power car, he will not be relying on a high torque motor, he may expect to be able to synchronise merges etc at above 70mph.

I drove a company car with such a limiter engaged once, and it was very dangerous. Fortunately I could switch it off and did so a soon as I had worked out how to (Merc 180 Kompressor). The first time it hit the limiter I was joining an M'way......

I have seen a few vans with limiter signs on the back. I feel sorry for the drivers stuck with an externally imposed additional level of risk.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 14:46 
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The problem is, low-power engines are typically found in low-end cars - the cars we can expect to also have low-end brakes, low-end suspensions etc, and therefore tend towards low-end safety.
However, it shouldn't be difficult to have a 'tune' within the EMS which reduces the engine's torque throughout the range. This would be preferable to a limiter.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 14:50 
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Why not just have it that kids have to pay for their own fuel. That ought to be quite an effective way of limiting them :twisted:

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 18:37 
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I'm not convinced (though I'd like to be! :twisted: ) about the notion that low powered cars are dangerous. I'm certainly not aware of any statistics that show low powered cars disproportionately represented in accidents, but I think it's quite the opposite for high powered ones! My first car had 35bhp and weighed just over half a ton. It simply wouldn't DO 80, and took a good minite to get to 60! I'm still alive. If you have a low-powered vehicle (or, I guess, more correctly, a vehicle with a low power and / or torque to weight ratio) you just cut your coat according to your cloth. "driving according to the conditions" includes the car as much as any external factors.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:30 
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Mole wrote:
I'm not convinced (though I'd like to be! :twisted: ) about the notion that low powered cars are dangerous. I'


Have to agree with you there. Mole. I drove my first wife's 2CV a lot (because it was very economical) and I never felt in any danger or had any problems because of the low power. But I did because of the lousy handling and awful brakes.
Which reinforces the point that someone else made - low power cars tend to be bottom of the range with concomitant low every thing else. Which, if they are over represented in the accident statistics, must be a very significant factor.

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